


half alone, our hearts are leaving home

by lonelywheel



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 18:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1315654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywheel/pseuds/lonelywheel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their toes are still touching and Niall’s breath comes in puffs in the cold morning air when he tells Liam that he doesn’t believe in coincidences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	half alone, our hearts are leaving home

Niall befriends Liam on the first day of preschool. And, really, no one can make much sense of it. Liam is quiet and introverted and always turns his homework in on time (even in preschool, when their only homework is napping and gluing). Niall is loud and excitable and so energetic he can barely handle napping, let alone gluing.

And they shouldn't work, they shouldn't click the way that they do. But of course they do, because that's how these stories go.

 

**

 

They live in a small farming town so it shouldn't come as much of a shock when they discover that they’re neighbors. But they’re young, so it seems like the biggest coincidence in the whole entire world at the time.

"Not coincidence," Niall says, "fate."

Liam’s only five and he doesn’t really understand the concept but Niall smiles, his tongue poking out between the gap in his teeth, and Liam thinks that maybe fate is like that feeling you get when your mom tucks you into bed at night.

 

**

 

Separating their houses is a long stretch of road and a peach orchard. It’s like that song that Liam’s mom sings when she folds the towels, “and we meet in the middle ‘neath that old Georgia pine” Maybe that’s where he got the idea. Honestly, it’s not much -- a small plot neatly organized in rows, ten by ten -- but it’s what they have and they use it as a meeting spot.

After school, they sit in the grass, their backs against the same tree, and talk until the sun starts to set and they have to go home.

During the summers, they spend whole days in the orchard. They have picnics and play tag and hide and seek and other games that Liam didn’t realize he would become an expert at. Sometimes they just sit and soak up each other’s presence as much as the sun.

 

**

 

When they’re in fifth grade, Niall gets this harebrained idea in his head. "But what if??" his hair’s gotten too long and it flies around his face, his eyes shining and his mouth wide and cartoonish.

Liam never really did get the hang of saying 'no' to Niall.

Niall shows up at Liam’s house the next day with a set of walkie talkies and a giant grin that’s more irritating than charming, given the time of day.

Liam starts at his house, Niall starts at his, and they count together, "one, two, three, four…" as they step. When they meet in the middle at 712 steps, Niall’s grin is triumphant and isn’t even dimmed by Liam’s tired stab, "It doesn’t even matter it’s just a coincidence."

Their toes are still touching and Niall’s breath comes in puffs in the cold morning air when he tells Liam that he doesn’t believe in coincidences.

"This _means_ something, Li."

Liam thinks that fate has something to do with distance and even numbers and boys with legs of different lengths.

 

**

 

The summer Liam turns twelve, they convince their parents to let them spend the night in the orchard.

*

Atop the hill that overlooks the rows of peach trees is an old abandoned farmhouse (they’ll learn later that it’s not completely abandoned, the man who owns the property comes back every few months or so to check on his land) and this is where they’re spending the night. Niall tells Liam that the locals say it’s haunted. By locals, of course, he means the kids that stand around the swing set during recess, but are too cool to actually swing.

But Liam doesn’t need to know that.

Niall tells him that the family that used to live in it contracted some sort of mutated strain of bubonic plague and were quarantined in their own house. But the townspeople were afraid that the sickness would spread anyway, so they formed a mob and stormed the house, killing the two farm owners and their three children. He tells Liam that they float around the rafters and terrorize anyone who dares to spend a whole night in their house.

Liam is twelve and quite a bit smarter than he was in kindergarten and doesn’t believe Niall’s story for more than a second. Or, maybe a few seconds. He certainly doesn’t believe it when they get to the top of the hill and see that what they thought was a farmhouse is actually a barn, and never housed any family, unless it was a family of cows or sheep or possibly vagrants. But Niall looks at Liam out of the corner of his eye like he’s checking to see if Liam notices anything off and Liam tries to keep his face blank. He thinks he should be offended by the fact that Niall (apparently) thinks he’s dumber than the kid who cut his lips with safety scissors the year before. So Liam pretends he believes him in the hopes that he’ll be able to turn this prank back around onto Niall somehow.

*

They end up sleeping in the loft in these old boxes hollowed into the floor that Niall says was used to hold the plague infested dead bodies, but Liam is pretty sure was used to hold hay. The loft floor goes across half of the barn and the other half is just rafters looking out over the ground floor about fifteen feet below. Liam’s not really in a talking mood, so when Niall starts to tell him ghost stories, he just rolls over in his sleeping bag and tries to sleep.

Liam starts awake a little before dawn at the sound of wings and a thud from below. The sun is shining through the gaps in the ceiling and there’s a faint mewling sound coming from the floor below where they’re sleeping that Niall will swear never came out of his mouth.

“Niall? What’s going on?”

A muffled “nothing,” comes up from below.

*

Liam later (like, three minutes later when Niall hobbles his way back up the loft ladder) discovers that Niall had woken up and seen a barn owl in the rafters and tried leaning out to catch it. The bird of course flew up and out the barn window. The fun part is that it hit Niall in the side of the head with its wings and knocked him down into the main barn area.

“But, Liam!” Niall says, still brushing hay off of his pants, “I fell right onto an old grain sack! Can you believe it? What are the odds?”

 

**

 

They get to high school and Niall starts taking AP and college prep courses. Liam takes statistics.

 

**

 

It’s late August, they’re both sixteen years old (old enough to know better, Liam thinks) and Niall says it’s going to be fun.

"I saw it in a movie once." His smile is brighter than the midday sun and Liam wants to punch him in the face.

"You never saw this in a movie because no one is dumb enough to actually do this."

"Liam, we never do anything that I want and you _know_ it. Let’s do this one thing."

Liam knows that that is categorically untrue and thinks it’s the stupidest thing he has ever agreed to do.

*

"All right, so the game is called " _Peach_ For The Sky." Niall pauses for Liam’s reaction and Liam doesn’t bite. He stares blankly until Niall starts talking again, a scowl on his face.

"The object of Peach For The Sky is to get rid of your peaches first. We each have a basket," he gestures to two full baskets of squishy, past-their-prime, peaches, "and it’s kind of like a snowball fight, but with peaches. Every time you throw a peach, you have to hit your opponent. If you miss, then you have to pick up two peaches to replace the one you threw. We’re going on the honor system, so, no cheating. You can use trees as shields but you can only stay behind one for 30 seconds, tops. There are no "safe" zones, meaning, even if you hide behind a tree I can still come around the tree and throw one of my peaches. And I think that’s it! The first person to successfully throw all of their peaches wins."

"What do you win?"

"Satisfaction, dear Liam, satisfaction."

Liam wants to ask if it’s too late to back out, but Niall can probably the question on his face because he just grabs his basket and runs behind the closest tree.

*

In a quicker than expected game, Niall empties his basket of peaches all over Liam’s chest, legs, and, unfortunately, face. Niall has giant spot on his abdomen where Liam got him with a peach in the very beginning. Liam thought he might be pretty good at Peach For The Sky, but it was his only hit and by the end, his basket has more peaches in it than when he started.

Liam uses a branch from the tree he was attempting to hide behind (Liam hadn’t considered the fact that peach trunks were rather narrow and impossible to hide behind so he had ended the game, cowering on the ground, while Niall threw peach after peach at him) to pull himself up.

"How are you feeling, Niall?" he hopes for a 'horrible,' or a 'guilty,' or maybe even a 'terribly ashamed.'

Instead, Niall walks up to him, kisses him on the cheek, and presses his hand into the sticky material of Liam’s shirt, right over his heart.

"Satisfied."

*

Liam smells like rotten peaches and his skin is coated with a thin layer of goo and thicker chunks in some places. He can smell the peaches on his body rotting even more in the hot sun and he honestly thinks he might throw up. When he gets home his mom does and he’s not allowed to see Niall for the rest of the summer. Liam thinks that maybe fate means doing stupid shit for the ones you love.

 

**

 

They make it through high school in much the same manner as before, minus any more games of Peach For The Sky. They meet in the orchard when the weather permits, and sometimes when it doesn’t. They sleep outside a lot. It’s not a planned thing, really.

*

The first time they get drunk together Liam kisses Niall under the stars. It’s not a planned thing. Really.

*

Liam thinks fate means sometimes pretending things haven’t happened so you don’t lose your friends.

 

**

 

Niall starts senior year at the top of their class and Liam’s-- well, he’s a little lower. He’s not surprised. He’s gotten used to following Niall everywhere he goes.

 

**

 

On an unseasonably warm night in late March, Liam doesn’t get into college and Niall brings a bottle of peach vodka with his sleeping bag. Liam thinks it’s dumb.

"It’s _cute_ ," Niall smiles a little, "Also it’s the only thing my parents don’t drink and won’t notice if it’s missing."

"I wasn’t talking about the flavor of the alcohol, Niall! I was talking about the mere presence of it. I don’t wanna drown my fucking sorrows in alcohol, okay. This isn’t a dumbass teen movie and it’s not gonna make anything better. It’s just gonna make me have a headache in the morning.”

For the first time in twelve years, Niall doesn’t really know what to say. So he just unrolls his sleeping bag, sits down, and starts drinking. Eventually, Liam joins him.

The thing about Liam is that he makes a plan and he sticks to it. And this, _this_ , is definitely not a part of Liam’s plan. He’s been counting on college. On college with Niall. On getting out of town and trying new things and finding himself and growing and all that dumb shit they tell you you’ll accomplish when you move out, and now it’s gone. And Liam’s a lightweight and he’s already really fucking drunk and maybe he’s said some or all of this out loud and Niall just looks so lost and Liam doesn’t like any of it.

“Sorry, Niall, I’m not trying to worry you. I’ll be fine. I’ve still got that job lined up. The one by your campus! We can hang out all the time, still.”

“Yeah, that’s nice.” Niall’s face looks like it’s maybe not nice at all. “I mean, God, Liam, you don’t need to comfort me. I’m comforting _you_. Fuck. I mean,” Niall pauses, taking a breath, “we’ve been on the same path since kindergarten. We’ve been attached at the fucking hip for twelve years. What are the odds that I’d get in and you wouldn’t?”

Liam sways a little bit and steadies himself by anchoring his head on Niall’s shoulder. He doesn’t bother answering. He failed statistics.

*

Liam wakes up with a headache and that sticky feeling in his eyes that you get when you fall asleep still crying. He shoves Niall awake and they pack up their sleeping bags in silence. It’s Wednesday but neither of them are planning on going to school.

When they get to the edge of the field, Liam turns to leave and Niall grabs his arm. He opens his mouth like there’s something he wants to say. He seems to think better of it and instead leans forward, fast, and kisses Liam on the mouth. He pulls back before Liam has a chance to reciprocate and looks thoughtful for a moment.

“Have I told you lately how glad I am that you turned out to be my next door neighbor?”

“Yeah,” Liam nods and scuffs his foot, staring at the ground like those blushing girls do in the movies, “pretty crazy coincidence.”

“Not coincidence,” he smiles, “fate.”

Liam is seventeen and he still doesn’t really understand the concept. Niall’s teeth have straightened out nicely and his tongue remains firmly in his mouth when he smiles, but it’s still Niall, it’s Niall, it’s home and it’s a lot of other things that Liam doesn’t want to think about at the moment. So he just nods and Niall nods back and they both turn on their heels and walk 712 steps home.

*

Liam thinks that maybe fate has something to do with glue and barn owls and disgusting fruit fights and peach vodka. Or maybe not. Niall’s the one who never believed in coincidences.


End file.
